WhiskeyRebel
Registered thread killer
Today I picked up the Webcor reel to reel I won on Ebay.
A. It is all in one piece. Apart from a few scratches on case, some faded labels on the panel and some loose pins on the safety connector under the tube cover, it looks better than I had any right to expect.
B. It is a standalone powered tape unit. Each channel has its own little EL84 and output tranny feeding a little square-field-case speaker. It also has external speaker and external amp outputs.
C.There are no tubes missing. The EL84s are Webcor stamped and marked "made in Great Britain". The 12AU7 driver (apparently shared by both channels) is also Webcor branded. All the 12AX7s and 12AU7s on the input board are labeled Amperex. So there are no recently made firecrackers in the thing. Must be silicon rectified because there is no rectifier tube on the chart or in the deck.
D. I know I should not have plugged it straight into 120 and flicked it on but I couldn't resist. So I plugged an old Les Paul copy into one of the mic jacks, set it for monaural and WHHHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!:guitar: Even if I never get the transport working, this thing works as a HELLACIOUS guitar amp!!! Absolutely MONDO gain and sustain for days. I'm talking Spinal Tap sustain.
Of course I still would like to see if it can be run as tape deck. What is the right kind of oil to lubricate the mechanism, and how will I know where all the lubrication points are?
Now here is an interesting idea - could I run the external speaker jacks into 8-Ohm load resistors paralleled with a high-resistance voltage divider to extract a line-level signal that has the extra flavor from the EL84s and their OPTs? This thing could be a secret weapon for mastering my band's tracks. Dump the mix onto tape at 7 1/2 IPS with the meter yellow, then run it back through the output tubes with a little pepper on the level.......
A. It is all in one piece. Apart from a few scratches on case, some faded labels on the panel and some loose pins on the safety connector under the tube cover, it looks better than I had any right to expect.
B. It is a standalone powered tape unit. Each channel has its own little EL84 and output tranny feeding a little square-field-case speaker. It also has external speaker and external amp outputs.
C.There are no tubes missing. The EL84s are Webcor stamped and marked "made in Great Britain". The 12AU7 driver (apparently shared by both channels) is also Webcor branded. All the 12AX7s and 12AU7s on the input board are labeled Amperex. So there are no recently made firecrackers in the thing. Must be silicon rectified because there is no rectifier tube on the chart or in the deck.
D. I know I should not have plugged it straight into 120 and flicked it on but I couldn't resist. So I plugged an old Les Paul copy into one of the mic jacks, set it for monaural and WHHHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!:guitar: Even if I never get the transport working, this thing works as a HELLACIOUS guitar amp!!! Absolutely MONDO gain and sustain for days. I'm talking Spinal Tap sustain.
Of course I still would like to see if it can be run as tape deck. What is the right kind of oil to lubricate the mechanism, and how will I know where all the lubrication points are?
Now here is an interesting idea - could I run the external speaker jacks into 8-Ohm load resistors paralleled with a high-resistance voltage divider to extract a line-level signal that has the extra flavor from the EL84s and their OPTs? This thing could be a secret weapon for mastering my band's tracks. Dump the mix onto tape at 7 1/2 IPS with the meter yellow, then run it back through the output tubes with a little pepper on the level.......